THEY ignored the success he inspired in 12 weeks as their caretaker manager, gave him an 'F' reg Ford Fiesta van as his company car and brazenly held interviews for the manager's job while he was coaching the players!

Sam Allardyce has every reason for harbouring the bitterest memories of his days on the Preston front and every justification for suggesting a derby win tomorrow would mean more to him, personally, than it would to Wanderers' fans.

"The fans probably won't believe that, but it's true," he insists.

But Big Sam doesn't bear a grudge - not in this case at least - and makes no bones about his affection for Preston North End. "Only one club has a bigger place in my heart and that's Bolton Wanderers," he says, looking back with the greatest fondness on his Deepdale days.

"I could easily have been lost to football at 31 or 32 when I was discarded here by Phil Neal.

"But Preston took me on and my career was extended; I went on to play my last league game at the age of 38. It was a great period for me."

Allardyce didn't know what he was letting himself in for when he arrived at North End. The club - one of the founder members of the Football League - had just survived a re-election vote, they had laid a plastic pitch and had a manager who was notoriously unorthodox, to say the least.

"It was scary," he admits, "We were known as the "Has-beens", the "Misfits" and the "Nomads" and we'd been put together by "The Madman", John McGrath, but we went from obscurity to great heights in one season.

"It was the first time I was introduced to the 'back three' system and the negative response we received at the time was incredible. We also had two of the smallest strikers around - Gary Brazil and John Thomas - and everyone kept asking "Where's the wingers?"

"But we stuck to the system, even when we had a bit of an 'iffy' time, and we scored more goals than anyone in the division. We finished second on 96 points with Northampton champions.

"The astroturf was brilliant. It gave us a consistent surface to train on all the year round and the improvement in the quality of football you got from the players - even myself at thirty-odd - was terrific. Our touch became so good that when we went away on grass pitches, we found it easy. We won 12 away games!

"The following season, we stabilised and the season after that we reached the play-offs. Terrific times.

"The only thing that disappointed me was that, after giving me the caretaker manager's job, they took too long before making an appointment. I felt a little bit aggrieved that I didn't get the post but I should have read the script when they gave me my company car - the F-reg Ford Fiesta diesel van - which was the club's odd job van.

"I realised I wasn't going to get the job after about six weeks when Chris Nicholl, Ray Mathias and John Beck arrived at the ground for interviews while I was working with the players.

"That was very unprofessional of them but it's been nice to prove them wrong!"

Allardyce knows the new Preston regime, newly promoted as Second Division Champions and with highly-rated young manager David Moyes in charge, will make life difficult for Wanderers tomorrow.

They slipped up in the Worthington Cup at Shrewsbury in midweek but they have won their two opening league games - at Grimsby and at home to Sheffield United - and will be determined to make it three in a row.

Moyes, who talks of titles and promotion rather than consolidation, is understood to be close to clinching a deal with Celtic for 20-year-old striker Mark Burchill.